* * *
The cloud up in the wintry sky was furry,
A squirrel skin, pale grey, a trifle faded.
He said: "You know, I'm not the least bit sorry
That you will melt in March, my frail Snow Maiden."
My hands turned cold inside the muff I carried...
Confusion came and fear, my heart ceased beating.
O how to get them back - that swift-gone, airy
Love and those weeks of it, so brief, so fleeting!
Hate? No. Revenge? What for? I'll do without it.
O to be dead at winter's end and buried!
On Twelfth Night, dazed, I asked the cards about him:
I was his love for most of January.
1911